HOUSTON – (Oct. 19, 2009) – The world’s best entrepreneurship centers were recognized in six areas for their outstanding contributions to entrepreneurship teaching and outreach last Saturday night at the annual Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC) award’s banquet. More than 340 university entrepreneurship educators and center directors attended the three-day GCEC conference hosted by Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

“The best entrepreneurship centers in the world – from long-established centers, to new programs only months old – shared best practices and ideas for entrepreneurship education, innovation and technology commercialization, research, fund raising, and outreach programs designed to help launch early-stage companies,” said Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. “The best of these centers were recognized by their peers for their outstanding work. Their efforts have far reaching effects as these are the people who are helping entrepreneurs who themselves are responsible for the most of the job creation, economic development, and wealth creation in our world.”

Awards were presented to the following university entrepreneurship centers:

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Rice Alliance for Technology & Entrepreneurship, Rice University and MIT
-Excellence in Specialty Entrepreneurship Education
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Rice Alliance for Technology & Entrepreneurship, Rice University
-Outstanding Centers of Entrepreneurship leadership
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University of California at Berkeley, Temple University, and University of Texas at Dallas
-Outstanding Contributions to the Advance of the Discipline of Entrepreneurship
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Georgia Tech and University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
-Exceptional Activities in Entrepreneurship Across Disciplines
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Indiana University - Bloomington
-Exceptional Contributions to Entrepreneurship Research
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University of Southern California - Marshall
-NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence
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Maggie Ailes, Ball State University & Travis J. Brown, Indiana University - Bloomington
-Entrepreneurial Support Award

The NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence award is determined by a set of 10 criteria that are used in aggregate by the judging panel to assess the worthiness of an award winning center. Nominations must be made by a previous award winner. NASDAQ has been a sponsor of the GCEC since its inception 13 years ago and continues to support the organization, entrepreneurship and business development. Paulette Peoples, GlobeNewswire Sr. Product Specialist, presented the award on behalf of NASDAQ.

Additional awards were presented for best elevator pitch highlighting the finest aspects of each center. The competition challenged each center’s representative to demonstrate their prowess at one of the aspects they teach their students – how to sell your business in 90 seconds. This competition took a more light-hearted view, awarding large, blue, foam cowboy hats to the top ten winners. Brad Burke of the Rice Alliance and Greg Price of GCEC sponsor, PKF Texas presented the awards at the Downtown Houston Aquarium.

The GCEC is the premier global organization for university-based centers of entrepreneurship. It has become the primary vehicle by which top entrepreneurship centers work together to share information, best practices, develop programs and initiatives, and collaborate and assist each other in advancing, strengthening, and celebrating the contributions and impact of university entrepreneurship programs.

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship
The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship is Rice University's flagship initiative devoted to the support of entrepreneurship. The Rice Alliance's mission is to provide entrepreneurship education and to support the commercialization of technology innovations and the creation of new companies in the Texas and Houston region. Since its inception in 1999, the Rice Alliance has assisted in the launch of more than 230 new technology companies, which have raised more than half-a-billion dollars in early-stage funding. Of these, approximately 35 companies have been launched based on technology developed by Rice faculty and researchers and licensed from the Rice Office of Technology Transfer.

Unique among many entrepreneurship centers, the Rice Alliance was formed as a strategic alliance of three schools at Rice University: the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management.

In 2009, the Rice University Entrepreneurship MBA program was ranked top 5 in the U.S. by Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine and the Rice Alliance was named the Outstanding Specialty Entrepreneurship Program for technology entrepreneurship in the U.S. by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Houston’s Greatest Economic Development Ally by the Greater Houston Partnership.

In 2007, the Rice Alliance was recognized as the No. 1 university entrepreneurship center in the U.S. for enterprise creation by the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers.

For more information about the Rice Alliance, visit www.alliance.rice.edu.

The GCEC
The Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC), formerly the National Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (NCEC), was founded in 1996. The intent of the organization is to provide a coordinated vehicle through which participating members can collaborate and communicate on the specific issues and challenges confronting university-based entrepreneurship centers.

The GCEC current membership totals 200 university based entrepreneurship centers ranging in age from well established and nationally ranked to new and emerging centers. Each year a global conference is held on the campus of an GCEC member school. In past years the host universities have included: University of Maryland, University of Southern California, Ball State University, Wake Forest University, Babson College, Texas Christian University, University of Portland, University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill, the collaborative Midwest effort of Northern Kentucky University, University of Cincinnati, and University of Dayton, Syracuse University, and University of Arizona. The conference, which is held in October of each year, continues to be the major focal point for the organization.

For more information about the GCEC, visit http://www.globalentrepreneurshipconsortium.org/index.cfm